Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950The history of a rarely written about, bewilderingly exotic city: 500 years of clashing cultures and peoples, from the glories of Suleiman the Magnificent to its nadir under Nazi occupation. Salonica is the point where the wonders and horrors of the Orient and Europe have met over the centuries. Written with a Pepysian sense of the texture of daily life in the city through the ages, and with breathtakingly detailed historical research, Salonica will evoke the sights, smells, habits, songs and responses of a unique city and its inhabitants. The history of Salonica is one of forgotten alternatives and wrong choices, of identities assumed and discarded. For centuries Muslims, Christians, and Jews have succeeded each other in ascendancy, each people intent on erasing the presence of their predecessors, and the result is a city of cultural traditions and memories of extreme violence and genocide, one that sits on the overlapping hinterlands of both Europe and the East. |
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Page 19
deep into the soil on either side of the town , torrents so quick to flood that well into the nineteenth century they would carry away a horse and rider , or sluice out the poorly buried bones of the dead in the cemeteries beyond the ...
deep into the soil on either side of the town , torrents so quick to flood that well into the nineteenth century they would carry away a horse and rider , or sluice out the poorly buried bones of the dead in the cemeteries beyond the ...
Page 43
As the details of the Vlatadon monks ' property portfolio show , Muslims and Christians lived and worked side by side , probably because Murad had settled newcomers in the homes of departed or dead Christians .
As the details of the Vlatadon monks ' property portfolio show , Muslims and Christians lived and worked side by side , probably because Murad had settled newcomers in the homes of departed or dead Christians .
Page 310
... along the street at the bottom of the parade - ground , hardly turning their heads to notice the blue - coated revolutionaries and the khaki - coated royalists facing each other with arms in their hands at the side of the street .
... along the street at the bottom of the parade - ground , hardly turning their heads to notice the blue - coated revolutionaries and the khaki - coated royalists facing each other with arms in their hands at the side of the street .
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - vguy - LibraryThingThe perfect book to read on first visit to 'thessaloniki. Unfolds the many layers of this extraordinary "border town", and how the complexity got shaved away over the course of the 20th century by ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - TrgLlyLibrarian - LibraryThingI learned a lot from this book, and I admire Mazower's ability to form such a complete account of Salonica. Read full review
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